New interior designs create different ambience in your home

New interior designs create different ambience in your home

Text by Rita A. Widiadana

JAKARTA (JP): Entering the year 2001, a lot of people may need
more energy and fresh ideas to face this challenging year. Yet,
only a few of them realize that their home and working
environment could become their major sources of inspiration, said
a noted interior designer.

PAI's architect and interior designer Thomas Elliot suggested
that people reconsider changing or modifying their home and
office interior to create a favorable atmosphere suitable to
their needs and personalities.

"By changing color schemes, re-arranging furniture and adding
some attractive decorations and accessories in each of the rooms,
you can create a totally different environment that could
probably stimulate your body and mind," said Elliot.

Showing his creations, displayed recently at Elite Grahacipta
in Kebayoran Baru area, South Jakarta, Elliot said he was
inspired by a black wooden cupboard, which he used as a central
point.

"I created a bedroom dominated by the colors black and white
and a sitting room with a co-ordinated theme and color scheme,"
he said.

In the bedroom, Elliot started with a cozy four-poster bed
canopied with black and white striped fabric. The ceiling of the
room is quite high to balance out the big and tough bed. A wooden
chest of drawers is used to store personal things as well as
other significantly decorative items.

"Bedrooms are the most personal room in a house. So, it will
be better for you to put your individual style in the bedroom,"
he suggested.

Busy designs, where there is a lot of fussy and frilly
furniture and accessories could be unnecessarily distracting, he
said.

For the living room, the black cupboard is the starting point
teamed with a beige sofa piled up with several cushions.

The living room often has to be the most versatile room in the
home, acting as an environment for a number of different uses. It
is usually a multi-purpose room which can be designed, furnished
and decorated in a variety of different ways according to your
requirements and lifestyles. Furniture storage, lighting and
decorative materials will have to be carefully selected to suit
the room's purpose and function, as well as helping to set a
style.

"These are all my tastes in style. When I work for a client, I
won't let my ideas, my ego appear in those creations," Elliot
said.

An interior designer should not seek to impress their peers.
Rather they should concentrate on doing a thorough job for the
client.

"We (interior designers) should let our clients express their
ideas so that later we can materialize them on our designs. If
the client is satisfied with it, then the design is a success,"
he said.

Sammy Hendramianto, an interior designer from Grahacipta
Hadiprana, explained there is a tendency among people to avoid
professional help when designing the interior of their residence.

"I admit the profession of an interior designer is not yet
popular. Actually, we can help people attain their dream houses
by providing necessary advice," he said.

To create a comfortable house, people could browse local and
foreign interior magazines, books and exhibitions. "They can pick
up ideas from those sources, which one is suitable for their
needs," Sammy said. It is unfortunate that there are only a few
good interior exhibitions held in Indonesia which could display
models for the average-income person, he said.

Elliot added people also like to follow the most recent trends
in interior design as created by magazines.

"Actually, there is no specific trend in home interior design.
People often follow what the magazines say," he said.

Yet, there are a number of styles or looks according to
certain architectural periods such as the Classical style, Gothic
style, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Modern styles to
Contemporary and High Tech.

"When I first came to Indonesia nine years ago, many clients
asked me to create classic designs in their home exteriors and
interiors," Elliot said. Such design reflects the grandeur and
the elegance of the past. Classic things are often associated
with opulence, intellectuality and higher societal status.

"But, over the years plainer treatments have come to be
adopted for interiors so that they are simpler and more rational
in style," he claimed.

The reasons have often been as much economic as aesthetic;
pressures on building space and limited budgets continue as the
ongoing crisis is not yet fully over.